Using creative instruments for promoting sustainable citizenship

Using creative instruments for promoting sustainable citizenship

Satu Lähteenoja, Burcu Tunçer and Marja Salo

Hagenauer Str. 30, D-42107 Wuppertal, Germany.

satu.lahteenoja@scp-centre.org, burcu.tuncer@scp-centre.org

+49 202 45 95 818

Arabiankatu 12, FIN-00560, Helsinki.

marja.salo@onedidit.com

+358 400 757 413

Using creative instruments for promoting sustainable citizenship
Abstract:
This paper and presentation discuss the importance of co-operation between different actors of society as well as the use of creative tools and processes when targeting the transition to more sustainable lifestyles. It gives examples on how to raise awareness and promote sustainability among different citizen groups by co-operating among researchers, civil society and business.
The first part of the paper focuses on the potential of partnering between civil society and researchers. Civil society has a crucial role in the issue, but more dialogue and partnering between civil society and researchers are needed. Two European Framework Programme 7 research projects targeting at this are introduced with examples on new, creative instruments that civil society organisations can use for advocating, partnering and encouraging change towards sustainable lifestyles. New practices are needed to transform the behaviour change from forerunners to the mainstream.
The second part presents an online community-based service called One did it. The service is based on a test that gives an estimate of the ecological backpack of one’s lifestyle. After doing the test, users have a chance­­­­­­ to receive daily tips and see the benefit of their actions. Furthermore, it is possible to share ideas and actions with other members and see what the whole community has done. Based on the experiences from this community, the potential of online communities to encourage changes in lifestyle is discussed. The exemplary initiatives presented show the potential of the co-operation between different actors.

1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. The SCP challenge

This year, Europe is facing multiple challenges related to its financial system, climate change and food supply. Tackling these global challenges requires engagement from business, governments and civil society. We need common, overarching strategies to offer solutions to these global problems. The financial meltdown in the short term reduces energy and resource use, but when the growth sets in again, will we return to the business as usual? The revival politics hold potential for change and need to be targeted to support development of more sustainable economics and society (UNEP 2009, Green New Deal Group 2008).

The concept of sustainable consumption has been proposed as a guideline to shift consumption behaviour towards a less harmful direction. A widely recognized definition of sustainable consumption was proposed by the Oslo Symposium on Sustainable Consumption in 1994: “Sustainable production and consumption is the use of goods and services that respond to basic needs and bring a better quality of life, while minimizing the use of natural resources, toxic materials and emissions of waste and pollutants over the life cycle, so as to not jeopardize the needs of future generations.” (The Norwegian Ministry of Environment 1994).

The consumers’ view on sustainable consumption is in general positive but also passive (OECD 2008). There is still a challenge to stress the relevance of food, housing and mobility sectors in order to affect the most important sectors of private consumption. Also cooperation between different actors and new innovations are required to find ways to encourage and support consumers to make changes in their consumption patterns. However, in the recent years, concern about climate change has risen and more and more people are willing to do something to promote sustainability.

Changing consumption and production patterns will require a joint effort by government, business and civil society actors. Like the Sustainable Consumption Roundtable (2006) stated, “Participation of all actors in society is needed to achieve sustainable consumption and production. None of these actors can change unsustainable patterns alone, but together they can form a so-called triange of change. Actors are ready to change their behaviour if they know that others are doing their bit“ (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Triangle of change

The concept of creative instruments is commonly used to refer to new economic tools like emission trading (e.g. Schilling & Osha 2003). Creativity is often also linked to problem solving or finding new approaches i.e. in planning processes (as presented by Woerkum, Aarts and de Grip 2007). However, in this paper the creative instruments refer to new approaches that support behaviour change. These include web tools, comics, exhibitions and community activities to spread awareness of SCP issues, but also new policy instruments and business approaches. In development communication the value of comics for instance has been recognized (e.g. Packalen & Sharma 2007). Authors argue that entertaining and informative tools of communication should be more widely adopted in SCP communication, too. Case examples of new innovative tools are presented in this paper.

The first step in involving CSOs to SCP is to inform and engage these organisations. It is essential to first agree on “the evidence base” if we want to achieve changes in the system of consumption and production (Tuncer & Narberhaus 2008). This requires a platform for discussion on the most relevant SCP issues.

The specific objectives of the project are to:

• 
  Develop material promoting the concept of SCP and displaying the potential and role of CSOs in this field. The material will contain information on previously undertaken research, the status of relevant processes, programmes and action plans (especially the EU Sustainable Development Strategy and the SCP Action Plan) and relevant stakeholders and networks (especially concerning CSOs).
  
• 
  Identify and discuss patterns and sustainability impacts and factors that limit progress towards SCP in the demand areas of food, housing and mobility with the active involvement of stakeholders.
  
• 
  Identify and discuss issues in the areas of finance, technology, policy instruments, capacity building and education and behavioural change as factors limiting or enabling SCP with the active involvement of stakeholders.
  
• 
  Draw and discuss conclusions for the future research agenda, for the implementation of processes, programmes and action plans and for deliberative processes to involve stakeholders with a focus on CSO and similar organisations.
  

The CSO Platform on SCP project focuses on three high-impact consumption areas, namely food and drink, housing and mobility. These areas have been chosen because they are responsible for 70 to 80 percent of the environmental impact of product consumption in the EU-25 (e.g. Tukker et al 2006). In practice, the project consists of three conferences with several workshops and an internet-based discussion platform (http://csoplatform.ning.com). The Internet platform offers a place for discussion and idea change between and after the conferences.

Figure 2. Main focus areas of the CSO Platform project. This figure will be revised for the final version.

The growing interest on environmental issues has encouraged the development of environmental calculators and internet-based tests, many of which focus on green house gas emissions or the ecological footprint method. Various sites also provide eco-tips on how to save energy or produce less waste for instance. There is no lack of information and consumers interested about the sustainability issues but the question is how to convert the consumers’ concern into real actions and changes in lifestyle.

The One did it service provides a platform for a community, which encourages to take small every day actions and adopt little by little a more sustainable lifestyle. The importance to closely combine environmental information and guidance on how to make improvements has been shown by Sutcliffe et al. (2008). They suggest that consumers are willing to act when the recommendable options are presented and can be easily adopted.

One did it is an online community and an eco-toolbox which members of the community can use to calculate the size of the ecological backpack of their lifestyle and get inspiring tips on how to lighten their backpack. The beta version of the One did it application was first launched in June 2008 at the Green Week in Brussels. Since then, feedback from users has been collected and the content, features, and visual performance have been developed.

The core feature of the site is the ecological backpack test which estimates the environmental burden of one’s lifestyle including housing, energy use at home, mobility, food and beverages, household goods, leisure time activities and waste. After completing the test and registering, daily tips providing a means to make small eco-improvements in everyday life will be provided. The main features of the service are presented in figure 3.

Figure 3. The structure of the One did it service.

In addition to the test and daily eco-tips, social features are an essential part of the service. Features like groups and challenges with friends and groups will motivate users to actively take small everyday actions. This includes competitions with friends and groups about who is the most active resource saver. In the development phases to come, members of the community will be able to document and show others “how they did it” by for example sharing a photograph of the new bicycle they will use for commuting or presenting a good recipe which was a success when they were having a vegetarian day.

The One did it calculation system mostly uses material intensity data published by the Wuppertal Institute in Germany and studies conducted by the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation (e.g. Kotakorpi et. al. 2008). In addition some individual case studies have been used as well. The database is under constant development process since the existing data is in some cases limited in its scope.